Communists turned social democrats have triumphed in Poland's general election—but populists and the far right have become a worryingly large minority

IT IS a pattern that has become common in Central Europe: the repackaged communists are back. At first glance, the results of Poland's general election on September 23rd would seem to mark a dramatic reversion to the communist past and a sullen rejection of the market reforms of the past decade. In fact, Poland has a steadier government, now centre-left and not communist at all, which should be better able than its ramshackle predecessor to bring the country into the European Union, still the top priority of all Poland's main parties.

The ex-communists, now called the Democratic Left Alliance, took 41% of the vote on Sunday. In contrast, Jerzy Buzek's outgoing government, based on the once-heroically anti-communist Solidarity trade-union movement, took less than 6%, failing to win even a single seat in parliament. Bronislaw Geremek's economic liberals of the Freedom Union, who walked out of the coalition government a year ago, were also butchered: with 3% of the vote, they too have lost all their seats. Turnout was a dismal 46%. The old anti-communist front that stirred hearts at home and abroad 11 years ago has been wiped out.

The end of market reform, then? Very probably not. Most of the ex-communists have genuinely changed. The incoming prime minister, Leszek Miller, a dour but wry 55-year-old ex-apparatchik (pictured above), is now pro-market, pro-NATO and pro-EU. His disappointment, despite securing the biggest electoral victory in the history of an independent Poland, is that he failed to win an outright majority of seats. He must therefore build a coalition or make a pact. That may not be easy.

The Civic Platform, under Andrzej Olechowski, which got 13% of the vote, shares many of the Democratic Left's policies but is the natural opposition in parliament. The only other party that could join the ex-communists is the Peasants' Party, which took nearly a tenth of the vote. It has been an awkward partner for the ex-communists in the past and is lukewarm in its attitude towards joining the EU.

Nationalist extremists did alarmingly well

The most worrying outcome of the election was the success of nationalist extremists. Among those seeking the protest vote, the biggest winner was a populist pig-farmer, Andrzej Lepper, and his xenophobic Samoobrona (Self-Defence) party, which won a good tenth of the vote. He says he might reluctantly support Poland's entry to the EU, but only if it gained concessions that it is unlikely to get. Tanned by nightly visits to his sun-bed, sporting an Elvis Presley-style quiff and a white-and-red tie, Mr Lepper adroitly used television to tell small farmers and former collective-farm workers that the crooked nouveaux riches of Warsaw had bled the country dry and that joining the EU, in its present form, would be death to Poland's countryside and those who lived in it.

He certainly drowned out the voice of the Peasants' Party, which has spoken for small farmers in the past. A few weeks ago its leader, Jaroslaw Kalinowski, sent Mr Lepper a haughty note offering him a third of the seats if he would join forces—a proposal Mr Lepper rejected with disdain.

The outgoing government alliance was beaten even by two parties of the hard right that few pundits had hitherto taken seriously. The Law and Justice Party, led by identical twins, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who demanded the return of the death penalty and inveighed against corruption, took nearly 10% of the vote. The other party to spring up from nowhere is the League for Polish Families, which got nearly 8%. Often anti-Semitic, it is backed by the ultra-nationalist wing of the Roman Catholic church, whose Radio Marya is said to have 4m listeners. The league has damned the EU as a “civilisation of death” for what it takes to be the EU's views on abortion and euthanasia.

Mr Miller, who campaigned on a platform of budgetary caution and austerity, has his work cut out. Unemployment is 18% and rising, economic growth has slumped from 7% a few years ago to a predicted 2% this year, an ambitious health-care reform has gone down badly, and the latest projections suggest a deficit of $5 billion in next year's budget.

Mr Miller has gone some way to reassure nervous foreigners, especially in Brussels, and businessmen at home and abroad, by giving the finance ministry to Marek Belka and foreign affairs to Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz. Mr Belka is an economist most businessmen seem to trust. Mr Cimoszewicz must, among other things, fend off Poland's anti-EU nationalists.

Most EU governments still think it politically unthinkable for Poland not to be in the first bunch of new countries joining from the east. But the Poles have been flagging in their negotiations, and there has been growing unease in Brussels. Mr Miller's government is at least better placed than its predecessor to clinch the deal that would bring Poland back into Europe's heart. That is, if Mr Miller can keep the new rowdies in parliament quiet.